A Beautiful Future and Tragic Ending

It was a time of trial, pre-World War One in Sweden where freedom was becoming a thing of the past. Religion was strained, finances were tight and John Martinson knew the time had come to do something drastic. He and Elna had three growing children with truly no future, should they stay in Sweden. The journey taken to simply arrange to leave the mother country was harrowing all in itself.

Immigrants, that's what they called them, because that's what they were; people who had left their home land, in search of a new life, a better life, in a new country. The Martinsens had three children, two daughters and one son but this is the story of their youngest daughter...Iris Mae Martinsen.

 I only ever knew them as “Grandma and Grandpa” but they weren't my grandparents, they were my mothers grandparents and my great grandparents. My mother spoke of them from time to time, of how they had come here, to the states, from Sweden, and never spoke a word of English. The kids were put into schools, Iris was given vocal training and would later become a famous opera singer with the Metropolitan Opera but I get ahead of myself.

I never took the time to even imagine what it must have been like, traveling by ship for weeks, maybe even months, with three kids. How bad must it have been back in Sweden for them to risk everything, sell what they couldn't take, taking only what they could carry for the most part. How exciting! How terrifying! The multitude of conflicting emotions must have been almost sickening.

I try to imagine them, in their woolen winter coats and cloaks, out on the decks of the ship, scarves and hats at the ready, eagerly searching the horizon for signs of America and then to finally see the great lady in the far distance, her torch welcoming them to the land of the free and the brave where the streets were rumored to be paved with gold and flowing with bread and honey. What a journey it must have been for all of them! Having to share a cabin with perfect strangers.

Later Iris would meet and marry the love of her life, my grandfather Lester Earl Oakley. I'm not certain what part he played in the lumber business but he was wealthy, he loved his wife, enjoyed fishing and was a member of the local sporting club where my mother would take part in the equestrian club. I race ahead again, my apologies.

Lester and Iris would try for ten long years to conceive. All the while Iris was singing her way to the top, singing in and for the local synagogues, singing on the local radio station, and throwing big parties at their large, Portland Oregon home, for the likes of Walt Disney's Mel Blanc. Their home was filled with people from the theater, from the opera, from the radio station. One fine night, during an Oakley entertainment extravaganza, a fine soprano made her way up the stairs to use the powder room. Little did she know, my grandfather had just had the radio piped into the bathroom to come on when he turned on the light in the morning. This very fine lady had no sooner turned on the light, locked the door and hoisted her skirts, to seat herself, when all of the sudden a mans voice chimed in....

“Well.......hello there.” he drawled. She jumped up, terrified to death, and with her bloomers down low, and her skirts held high, she exploded from the bathroom, screaming clear down the hall, to the mixed stares of all the onlookers below.

Iris's parents had a beach front property. Lester and Iris would spend time there when they had some free time to spend. It was a little old wood shanty of a beach cabin with an outhouse for personal needs and a fireplace for heat. It would take Lester and Iris ten long years to finally conceive my mother but in nineteen thirty-one their prayers were finally answered. In nineteen thirty-two Iris would finally give birth to Barbara Joan Oakley. It was a difficult pregnancy, and a premature birth, whereby they almost lost their first and long awaited baby girl. It would be another long five years before they would have Elaine, the youngest of their two children.

Iris would go on to give voice lessons to the famous and renown Jane Powell, born Suzanne Lorraine Burce. My mother said, this itty bitty girl waltzed into the house; with her gorgeous blue eyes, fair skin, and dark brunette hair, opened her mouth to sing and nearly broke the fine china!

It was a time most people can't even begin to imagine, as part of their own lives, and of course we could ONLY imagine, as my grandparents were all long dead before I was even thought of; but we heard about it all the time. It was such common place that none of us ever really took the time to comprehend what all of that truly meant. As we grew from children to teens, we all felt a bit robbed. Here was Jane Powell, beneficiary to “OUR” grandmothers knowledge, ability, and training, while all we wanted to do was sing like the angels in heaven! It never really quite settled over us that our grandmother had been famous, rubbed elbows with the great, classical entertainers and vocalists of the age, her legacy, her story tragic and great, swept under our childish feet.

My grandmother told my mother and then mother told us....”When you wake up in the morning, you have a choice to make. You can choose to be happy, or you can choose to be unhappy. The choice is yours to make.”

My mother was later thrown from her horse and dragged. She would never ride again. She did, of course, sing with the choir and though we didn't hear her sing much; what little we did hear told us she also had a powerhouse voice. She would hum under her breath and even that was powerful enough to rattle the windows. Tragically none of us girls...her four daughters, would inherit the kind of volume our parents wielded. My guess is it was to do with the training we never received.

Iris spent a great deal of time away from her family. She would travel to New York to sing with the Metropolitan Opera; she would sing in the local synagogues and she performed regularly with the local radio station. My mother felt she had been abandoned, raised by the nannies and house-keepers, left to raise her little sister whom she loved and hated at the same time. From what she told us, little girl Elaine would do things such as, chase mother around the table with the butcher knife so...fun times.

Iris's health began to fade, and in nineteen forty-seven, Lester found her hemorrhaging in their bed. He took her in his arms, ran down the stairs with her, then drove her to the hospital. Iris was a woman of great faith and believed she would be healed and sent home. That day would never come. My mother was sitting in her home room class at the high school, fifteen years old, when the people from the radio station, Iris's colleagues....and friends...stepped into her classroom singing...”When You Walk Through a Storm” From Rogers and Hammersteins “Carousel”. That's how my mother learned her mother had passed away.

Iris Annie Elvira Martinson Oakley, her story is a remarkable one. It deserves to be told; but more than that, she deserves to be remembered. She had her body cremated and her mother believed those who are cremated never return to God. She refused to eat after that and would only drink vinegar. She also died soon after. Lester would go on to marry Iris's best friend, Helen McCartney, who was also a concert pianist and vocalist who did several tours with the USO during World War Two. They would have two children as well; son Kevin and daughter Karen. Helen would inherit Lester's entire estate; when he passed away, but for the money he invested on behalf of mother and Elaine, money we have yet to recover as he never disclosed its location.

They were so great, great people from a great time in our history. Fascinating and exciting, tragic times I'm truly amazed can be considered part of who I am...if not a part of who I am becoming.